


the choices were given

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Body Horror, Fluff and Angst, Horror, M/M, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: Everything is perfect between Iruka and Kakashi, but lately Iruka seems off in ways Kakashi can't pinpoint.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	the choices were given

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagnusTesla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnusTesla/gifts).



> some unreality, body horror ish stuff, E warning more to be safe
> 
> anyway Magnus , i thought maybe you could use a pick me up, and this seems like your type of thing <3

He catches brief flashes sometimes, where Iruka’s face seems off. Like looking in a mirror and realizing the glass is warped and the reflection is damaged.

But it’s Iruka, who is kindness and goodness personified, who Kakashi loves. 

If he ignores the uneasy feeling when Iruka’s hands are chilly or the strange snores at four am, it’s because of the way he cares for Iruka.

*

Iruka kisses him slow and fucks him softer, draining the tension of the day from him. 

The smile in his eyes might be dimmer than Kakashi is used to, but they live in a dangerous world.

As long as Iruka keeps touching Kakashi’s skin and whispering things Kakashi can’t quite understand.

*

The first time he brings home Ichiraku and Iruka pleads off with an upset stomach, Kakashi doesn’t press it. 

But when he brings home Iruka’s favorite dish and plates it, topping it off with a glass of Iruka’s favorite sake.

Then, when Iruka refuses, Kakashi begins to wonder and worry.

*

His eyes bore into the papers on his desk without seeing.

Has Iruka been spending time elsewhere? When Kakashi is in the office, is Iruka sneaking around and getting his fill?

It doesn’t fit with the Iruka he loves, but neither does one who turns down his professed favorite food.

*

Come to think of it, he doesn’t remember the last time he saw Iruka eat more than a few bites of food.

*

Kakashi comes home and Iruka gives him a back massage, his clever fingers teasing out knots that Kakashi didn’t know existed. 

Iruka begs to blow him.

After he comes on Iruka’s face, it’s easy to pull Iruka up until they both lay back on the bed. 

The thing is that Iruka fucks like a promise, like there’s nothing else permeating his existence, and Kakashi gets enveloped in it every time.

*

Kakashi traces the scar tissue on Iruka’s back. Naruto saved him all those years ago.

But he’s read the files about the Mizuki incident, and the medinin called Iruka’s survival a miracle.

He doesn’t doubt that Iruka would have given his life for Naruto. Kakashi just isn’t sure how that didn’t happen.

*

There’s something about Iruka that hovers in the spaces of Kakashi’s mind.

It’s not his smile, or the gentleness of his hands, but the way Iruka’s features individually don’t match his face.

That’s a crazy thing to think, Kakashi tells himself, and ignores the uncanny valley sensation of catching Iruka in profile.

*

“How’s the Academy?” Kakashi asks.

Tonight Iruka is eating. When was the last time the two of them ate together like this? Memories fizzle and fade when he tries to bring them up.

“Fine,” Iruka replies, steadiness eased into the slight wrinkles of his face. 

There’s a bit of grey easing into the strands of Iruka’s hair, both of them showing their ages more.

Everything is perfectly normal, down to the sharpness of Iruka’s incisors.

*

“Something is going on with Iruka,” he tells Tenzou over lunch.

Tenzou raises an eyebrow. “Like he’s sneaking around the way he did a few years ago to get that portrait of Pakkun commissioned?”

Kakashi’s heart eases from the tight grasp it’s locked in. The portrait hangs in their foyer. It’s decadent and absolutely ridiculous. 

“He might be cheating on me?” 

Kakashi can’t remember why he thinks that.

“Okay,” Tenzou says. “I’m listening to you because of our life long friendship, but I’ve never seen Iruka so much as _glance_ at another person since you got together.”

“It must be something else, then,” Kakashi undertones.

He can trust Tenzou.

*

They fumble quick orgasms in the warmth of the bedsheets.

Kakashi smothers a smile in Iruka’s neck at Iruka’s huff over needing to change the linens.

They make out like they haven’t done in ages, sharp sighs and groans.

Iruka always feels the best like this, when they’re bundled up and the curtains are drawn, and there’s nothing to think except the scorching heat of Iruka’s mouth layering kisses across his clavicle.

*

Kakashi is home with pneumonia and Iruka insists on staying with him. There’s soup and fresh pillows and a perpetually ice cold glass of water on the nightstand.

Iruka wraps around him at night, ignoring Kakashi’s protestations that he’s contagious.

“It’ll be fine,” Iruka says, splaying his hand across the exact spot where Kakashi’s chest cavity aches. “We’ll be fine.”

*

“All written history of my clan was destroyed with the Kyuubi attack. There’s only the stories my parents told me.”

Kakashi has stacks of Hatake records of Konoha and outside regions that grow piles of dust.

He spends a night going through scrolls, searching for the word Umino.

The fragments he finds don’t make any sense. Ink is smudged or paper is torn. 

There’s one section that’s preserved, but Kakashi’s head aches when he tries to read it.

He presents it to Iruka, his fingers digging into the throbbing of the once Sharingan eye, like there’s danger present.

Iruka’s face flashes with concern—or is it fear?

The scroll falls to the ground, Iruka supporting his weight as the blackout migraine starts.

*

Kakashi curls into the familiar plane of Iruka’s chest, the one safe spot.

Iruka murmurs in a language Kakashi can’t comprehend, but the words are warm as they swirl around his head.

*

“My parents didn’t get to tell me much. I was too young, they said.

“I thought that if Mizuki didn’t kill me, the kyuubi would reveal me, but no one noticed.”

Iruka’s breath hitches and Kakashi rubs tentative, soothing circles into his hands.

“When did you?” Iruka asks. Heavy circles line his eyes, the ones that seem to shimmer between human and other.

Kakashi can’t say. He still isn’t even sure how to explain that he knows something is different.

“Small moments, but it took years,” he finally says. “When I would get a glimpse or you were asleep. The times we’d have sex and you...untethered.”

The anguished noise Iruka makes has Kakashi moving to kiss him.

The slide of Iruka’s mouth is sharper, rougher, less familiar. If Kakashi doesn’t focus on it, his mind doesn’t hurt.

*

“I know you,” Kakashi says. “All of you.”

Iruka’s body scatters into pigments of cauterizing light, reassembling into something Kakashi cannot catalogue.

“I love you in all forms.”

Iruka kisses him and this time there’s no lingering malaise.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from haligh haligh a lie haligh by bright eyes cause it was stuck in my head.  
> big thanks to badger for providing me with encouragement and looking over this for me!!
> 
> idek y'all. escaping into fiction.


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